Freedom

America is a continent (even I, who sucks at geography, know that), and 'United States' is a political concept, not a country's name (actually, the official name of Mexico is the United States of Mexico). Naming a country 'United States' is like naming a dog 'canine': cute, but ultimately illogical. So, yes, for me, that country has no name and shouldn't be called as such, period.

However, just this once, for the sake of honoring Doug Stanhope's beautiful argument, I'm going to let in this post the term 'America' refer to that country north of Mexico and south of Canada.
I've also edited it a little bit, for grammar mistakes (he's ad libbing at a certain point) and foul language: a lot of people, including my parents and supervisor, read this blog, so I got to keep it professional. Well, they actually don't, but just in case...

Enjoy!

America takes credit for giving you freedom that you already had in the first place. You're born free and America takes credit for it. That's like putting your own name tag on somebody else's present on a birthday party and calling it yours.

Think for a second: you're born absolutely free, except for laws of nature: you drink, you get drunk; you get old, you die; you sit on tack, you bleed from the ass. Those are the only laws that you're born with and any government just takes away from those freedoms. If you think that you're free, walk outside to your own car with your own beer in your hands and see how long you last. You're not free. You can't drive down the street without a seatbelt on, you better put on a helmet. This country tells you literally where and when you can cross the street. You got to keep your tray and your seat in the upright and locked position during take off. It's a hack premise and it's a fellony...

'We vote for that!'

We vote for that? No, we don't! When was the last time you saw a measure on a ballot that was this specific: "Do you vote yes on proposition 313: to keep pasties off titty dancers?" No, you vote for a guy who says "I'll lower taxes" and then goes and makes the pasties-off rule behind your back. You don't vote for anything that you care about; you're not free. You get a bounty hunter that can knock down your door without any regulation in this country, yet you need a degree to cut hair.

They say if you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish then... he has to get a fishing license, but he doesn't have any money so he has to get a job and get into the social security system and pay taxes, and now you audit the poor bastard because he's not really good at math, he just a wanted to eat a fish! But he can't, because he can't cook the fish because he needs a permit for an open flame, and the health department is asking him all sorts of questions about where is he going to dump the scales, and the bones, and the guts... and kids, guess what? If you get tired of it all at the end of the day, you're not even free to kill yourself in this country!

'America gave you the freedom to stand on that stage and say what you're saying right now.'

No, dimwit, a voice box gave me the freedom to stand on this stage to say what i'm saying! It comes with the product; they don't install that for you after you're born in this magical dirt.

You were born free, you were hacked out of it, and you're waving a flag celebrating it.

Beautiful, isn't it? I got to admit that there are certain topics in which I don't totally agree with Doug (more specifically, his thoughts on abortion), but everytime he's on stage he makes these senseless, gruesome, incredible, blown-out-of-proportion arguments that, first, I laugh incredibly hard at, and then make total sense to me. So, lo and behold: Doug Stanhope... People will leave. I go on stage, it's like I'm leading you into battle -- you're not all going to be here at the end.